AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Or wait for me.
Because if he was in trouble, then so was I. It had taken two for us to meet up again—at least that second time—and Joseph had come far too close to catching us. If that was the situation that had somehow caused all of this—I didn’t know how it could be, but if it was—then it meant we were both in hot water. And he wasn’t even fucking waiting for me before taking himself off land and into hiding.
Asshole.
I hit the end of the dock at full stride and leapt, not bothering to think about whether I could seriously make it from the dock to the boat without taking a cold bath in the ocean. I came down on the deck of the ship a moment later, though, hitting hard and throwing myself into a roll to try to save my knees. I’d just come out of the roll when I felt hands grabbing me and yanking me to my feet.
Then turning and slamming me back against the first wall available.
“Brooks, what the hell are you doing here?”
I looked up, still a bit disoriented from the jump and roll, and Anthony Massimo was in front of me.
Looking furious.
“What am I doing here?” I snarled. “What are you doing running away without even checking your texts? Did you even realize I was trying to get in touch with you? Did you care? Or did you see them and just blow right past them?”
I grabbed his shoulders, threw my weight against him, and caught him by surprise, managing to reverse our positions and throw him up against the wall. His eyes narrowed and he snarled in response.
“Text you? You think I’m going to text you when my family’s being attacked and I’m being left out in the cold? You think I want to talk to you when I think there’s a good chance that you’re the one who turned us in and sent the Rossis after us?”
He did a quick dance and suddenly our positions were reversed again, my head hitting the wall with a solid thunk when he turned me. I twitched, furious, and made to reach for my gun, but he caught my wrists and pinned them to the wall above me.
“No guns,” he snapped. “I know you have at least one on you, and this isn’t the time, Brooks.”
I almost spat right in his face. How the fuck had I thought this was going to go? Anthony was a Massimo and his family had just been attacked. I’d known—or guessed—that they would have thought it was the Rossis, and with that in mind it made sense that he thought I was behind it.
I wasn’t. But he didn’t know that.
Though maybe he should have. I’d never sold him out, no matter what we did or who was asking, and he knew it. I’d always had his back—even when I shouldn’t have. I’d always covered for him.
Did he think that had changed?
“Why are you here, Brooks?” he asked again, his eyes aflame with suspicion.
Right. Time to be the bigger person. Because what I’d just thought was true. No, it wasn’t my fault if he was too fucking stupid to figure it out. It just meant I had to actually tell him.
“I came,” I ground out, “to make sure you were fucking safe, you asshole. You actually think the Rossis came after your family, or that I sent them? Don’t make me laugh, Anthony. I’ve always had your back. I’ve always covered for you. And when I heard the Massimos were hit, you were the first thing I thought of. I hauled ass to the bar to make sure you were okay. And when you weren’t there, I knew you’d come here. And I came after you. Because if the Rossis decide to hit the Massimos before the Massimos hit the Rossis, I’m the only thing that’s going to stand between you and the business end of Joseph Rossi’s gun. Don’t be an idiot, Anthony. If I’d wanted you dead, I would have done the job myself.”
I left out the part about wanting to come to see if he had more information on what his family might do. Honestly, this just didn’t seem like the time to bring that up.
He stared into my eyes like he was trying to see right into my brain to tell whether I was telling him the truth... and I stared right back.
“Call me a liar,” I hissed. “I dare you.”
His eyes got even narrower as he considered doing just that.
And then he slammed his mouth down on mine and kissed me like his entire body was a weapon and he was trying to kill me with it. I froze, so shocked that I couldn’t move for a moment, and then my body remembered who this was and what we were going through and came alive like a flame bursting to life. I yanked my hands from his grasp and tangled my fingers in his hair, holding his head still while I let his mouth ravage mine. It wasn’t a kiss, really. It was a battle. All tongues and teeth and harsh, rasping breaths as we tore at each other.
I’d never been so aroused in my life. My body was humming with the tension we’d been building between us and the memory of what we’d once been, and his rocking hips and hard cock told me he was erect and ready, his body seeming to answer whatever mine was telling it.
I groaned deep in my throat and took one hand down his chest, finding his cock and pressing against it. He returned the groan and I felt his mouth curve in a wicked smile against my lips.
God, this man.
A few quick flicks of his hands and his belt was undone, the hard length of his erection pushing up over the waistband of his jeans. I brushed my fingers over the soft velvet of the tip, feeling him wet and ready, and felt my knees turn to jelly. When his hands went to work on my own belt and slid downward, their tips hot and demanding against the flesh of my belly, I almost cried with need.
I’d wanted a lot of men in my life, but the want I felt for Anthony was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was full of the tension and need of this moment. But it also held the echoes of everything we’d ever been to each other. Echoes of that one night we spent together, when we fit up against each other like we should have always been side by side. This moment, this need, held everything I’d ever felt for him, ever since we were too young to realize what we had between us.
